We should maintain that if an interpretation of any word in any religion leads to disharmony and does not positively further the welfare of the many, then such an interpretation is to be regarded as wrong; that is, against the will of God, or as the working of Satan or Mara.

Buddhadasa Bikkhu, a Thai Buddhist Monk


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Scientific Method vs. The Creationist Method

The creationists ( biblical literalists who insist that the Bible is objectively infallible in all matters)—the creationists are playing a game that in the long run they cannot win.  Scientific knowledge is expanding exponentially and has reached a rate of discovery today that virtually overwhelms creationism with mountains of data that creationists cannot explain away.  They, of course, will never admit that fact, but their cognitive ghetto will continue to shrink and shrivel, doing serious damage all the while to the cause of Christ.  Creationism stands on the verge of becoming mere superstition, if it hasn't already fallen into that abyss.

What kinds of data? Here are a few examples gleaned from articles in the "News in Science" section of The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website:

- European scientists have discovered what may be the location of the "last stand" of Neanderthals in the Ural Mountains 33,000 years ago. (link)
- scientists have uncovered data supporting the hypothesis that, "Cancer could be an 'evolutionary throwback' locked within our genes and linked to the time before we became multicellular animals." (link)
- Japanese scientists plan to clone a living mammoth, long extinct, using tissue from a preserved mammoth carcass in Russia. (link)
- A Scottish scientist has found evidence of complex life 1.2 billion years ago - 400 million years earlier than previously accepted." (link)
- Archeologists have discovered the remains of yet another human species in a cave in South Africa, the remains dating nearly 2 million years ago. (link)
- Meanwhile, "Scientists in Germany have discovered another new human species that lived in Siberia around 30,000 to 50,000 years ago,"  at the same time as Neanderthals and our own modern human species. (link)

The "News in Science" archives contains dozens of articles on similar topics reporting findings on all sorts of subjects and collectively substantiating and expanding the massive (unimaginably massive) collection of data, findings, fact, and theories that makes up modern science.  Many of them expand and deepen our knowledge of the facts of evolutionary biology.  And all of those article still represent only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of science.  Creationism does stand and cannot in the face of it all.